


crossfire

by sehnsvcht



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Hospital, Ambiguous/Open Ending, M/M, Mentions of War, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 15:55:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11740314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sehnsvcht/pseuds/sehnsvcht
Summary: While all he’s ever known comes down to a gun in his hand and a battlefield under his feet, Yixing, who is kind and sweet, makes Lu Han forget there are wars raging somewhere, and that he should be taking part in them.





	crossfire

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all enjoy this wild mess of a ride as much as I had fun writing it. For the best, most immersive reading experience, listen to Stephen's "Crossfire," the song that inspired the title which I listened to while writing almost all of this. 
> 
> Written for prompt #135. Enjoy!

Lu Han can’t breathe.

There’s a sharp jab of pain shooting from his leg to his brain, throbbing at his thigh and pulsing in his head. It’s _agonizing_ , so much so he can barely feel his body—just the overwhelming feeling of hurt, everywhere. When he looks down, his vision blurs—the pain is too strong for him to really focus on anything else, be it himself or the chaotic landscape around him swimming in dizzying, moving shapes. Somewhere in the back of his mind, however, he notices the smoke, how it latches onto his lungs, how it keeps himself from inhaling.

He cannot _breathe_.

Through the pain that’s squeezing the life out of him, through the smoke that’s tightening the muscles of his throat, through the tears forming at the corner of his unfocused eyes, Lu Han panics, denies any of this is happening, because it simply _cannot be_.

It can’t be. Not now, not like this—Lu Han can’t go, not like this. Right? Not like this.

Some silly part of his mind that’s still lucid through the jarring agony is screaming about how this shouldn’t be happening. Lu Han is a soldier. He has trained his entire life for this—has fought for a good part of it, too. He is meant to win, constantly win, never once fail. That’s what the Academy has taught him, that’s what the Academy made him to be. He cannot afford to let out his last breath on the field, not even before celebrating his first ten years of service. He’s still a Novice, for God’s sake.

However, the confusion takes over the panic very soon, as his body desperately to latch onto the last threads of life keeping him conscious. He thinks he hears the bombing—he can always hear the bombing—getting mixed with voices, some far away, some closer than they should be. He thinks he loses sensation over his limbs quickly, but the pain is still there, now submerging his entire brain, taking over his senses. Crying becomes difficult, although he isn’t even sure if he was crying in the first place or not. He could feel the tears, though, sliding down his cheeks and most likely leaving dark soot traces behind them against his skin.

Lu Han is dying. That’s what must be happening, right? Or else, he wouldn’t have lost all hope. He wouldn’t be in this state. He wouldn’t feel like a failure.

He indulges himself one sob, one whimper, before he surrenders, letting the pain take over. It’s almost as though he watches his own body lose control over itself, feeling his heartbeat frantically go up and down before it slows drastically, losing the capacity to sort through his thoughts, not…

Before he knows it, the world goes black, and everything— _everything_ —suddenly stops.

***

They’re only a collection of echoes, and later when he’ll wake up long enough to register what’s happening to him, Lu Han won’t remember any of it. However, right now, as it is, Lu Han can hear. He hears them; voices, again, but different ones. The bombing is there, still, but very faint, almost nonexistent. He doesn’t have the mind to wonder why that is.

“We’ve lost him, Baekhyun—” A woman, sounding calm yet strained, irritated. Resigned.

“I can still pick up some of his vitals. He’s still with us.” A man’s voice, rich, slightly trembling but assertive and firm. “Shock him up again.”

“It’s pointless, his pulse is almost nonexistent, his skin is freezing, his breathing is—”

“I didn’t fucking ask, Taeyeon!”

For a moment, just a moment, the voices stop. Then, the woman speaks up again. “Baekhyun… he isn’t the first. You’ve done what you can.”

“No, I didn’t. I can still—let me.”

Something suddenly jolts Lu Han’s everything, and nothing can be heard for three, five, ten seconds. Then, the tickling echoes of voices pick up again.

“Baekhyun.” A new voice, crystalline, soft despite its pressing tone. “He’s breathing again.”

Something like an exhale, exhilarated, unbelieving. “Oh my God, he’s breathing, Yixing, he’s breathing!”

“He is,” the soft voice says again. “He is.”

Then, the world goes black, again. But at least, now, he can breathe.

***

During an indefinite span of time, Lu Han’s mind wakes up on its own accord, not unlike it had, that first day.

It usually lasts a few minutes at most, and he can only hear the soft murmur of voices around him, for the most part. At times, when he is particularly lucid despite his state, he can also pick up on the whirring of machinery behind and around him, surrounding him. The smell of blood and something acrid and clinical overwhelms him.

No one talks to him, during those times, for the most part. He hears faint echoes of people talking beside him, but rarely do they ever address him directly—maybe because they can’t pick up on his semi-conscious state, or maybe they simply choose not to care. Lu Han isn’t sure. He isn’t sure of anything, really.

But that crystalline voice he had heard, that very first day—or whenever that was—that voice sometimes speaks to him, soft and caring and so casual. Lu Han barely retains what it says, and it’s not like he can reply—but sometimes, his brain is clear enough for him to hear, to listen.

“Good evening, John Doe,” it once said, always soft, but still slightly more chipper, this time. “It looks like your state is improving. Maybe then, you’ll answer my questions, right?”

Lu Han doesn’t answer questions, he thinks vaguely. Lu Han follows orders and protects his homeland and makes his people proud. That’s what the Academy taught him, that’s what he believes in.

“What’s your name? How old are you? I wonder, you know. You can’t leave me hanging, right?”

The world is still black against Lu Han’s eyelids, unable to put a face to those words speaking to him so earnestly. Maybe he’ll never wake up. Maybe this beautiful voice just isn’t meant to hear back from him, after all.

Or maybe, maybe the Universe has other plans.

***

The first time Lu Han manages to open his eyes, he can only see white.

The light is stark against his eyes, hitting at his retina strongly and making him close them right away again, hissing at the sharp pain. Distractedly, he thinks he hears movement around him, noise and voices growing closer, interested, something between amazed and relieved, though he has a hard time understanding why.

He has a hard time thinking at all, as it is. He should give himself a break.

Is someone asking him a question? It sounds as though someone is asking him a question.

When he tries to pry his eyes open again, Lu Han goes slowly, letting the light in progressively, growing used to it. The voices grow clearer in his head as well, incoherent noises becoming words, and later, sentences. Questions. Directed at him.

“Are you with us? Can you hear me? Do you understand me?”

When Lu Han’s vision focuses, slowly, he starts to depict faces, all staring at him with a mix of emotions—wonder, fear, hardness, patience. There’s two men at his left side, one standing, and another one sitting, closer to him. On his right, a woman is also standing, looking between him and the hologram screens hanging above his head.

It’s when she speaks that he realizes the previous questions were asked by that voice he’s come to recognize with time. He still doesn’t know who it belongs to.

“His vitals are stable,” she says, eyes furtive on the screens. Her hand is delicate with them, flipping through reports and analyses and whatever other doctor stuff is stocked in his medical file. “He’s still a little weak, but it’s to be expected.”

“Good,” the standing man says. The hardness in his gaze is softened with relief, and Lu Han sees something else in it, something… warm? “Welcome back, soldier.”

 _Soldier_. Suddenly, vivid memories come back at him in stark, bloodied images—the battlefield, Yifan’s orders screamed into his ear, the dark sky above him, the gas, his lungs unable to breathe. Corpses, lying all around him, too many of them, and the overwhelming fear of being the next one to join them.

Lu Han doesn’t realize he’s shaking until a hand drops above his own, calming, warm. Everything is so warm, here. “Hey, John Doe. You’re okay. You’re safe, here.”

He looks up when the voice speaks again, and finds the seating man with kind eyes poised on him, steady and firm. There’s a gentle edge to them, though, something sweet, something Lu Han thinks he is undeserving of, fleetingly.

“And where am I, exactly?” he attempts, but the words don’t make it past his lips. He chokes on air, and that’s when he realizes just how dry his throat actually is.

“Whoa, easy there, soldier,” the other man says again. _Soldier_. Again. Lu Han doesn’t know how he feels about the nickname. “Taeyeon, could you bring our patient a cup of water?”

The woman next to him—Taeyeon, he presumes—nods in silence, filling a cup with water and bringing it to Lu Han’s lips delicately. Lu Han laps at it at the best of his capacities, letting the liquid flow down his throat and soothe some of his ache.

Everything aches, really, but the water helps. He feels like he’s functioning again, somehow.

“I’m Yixing,” the soft, singing voice says. Lu Han turns to see the seated man—Yixing—looking at him with a tiny corner smile, his hand still warm against Lu Han’s rougher ones. Yixing’s hands are delicate, crafted meticulously, even, so different from Lu Han’s own. “Zhang Yixing. I’m your nurse, soldier. And this is Dr. Byun Baekhyun,” Yixing continues, pointing to the man at the foot of his bed, who greets him with a short salute. “And over there, that’s Nurse Kim Taeyeon.”

“And who are you, soldier?” the doctor asks, eyes boring into him. It contrasts greatly with the open features the man has, his thin lips and his soft cheeks.

For a moment, Lu Han stays silent, observing the crew around him. The whirring of machines is faint, now, fainter than it had been in his memory—though he doesn’t remember much before… well, before five minutes ago, really. The only noise he can really pick up on is the soft breathing of the three people in the room with him, as well as his own laboured inhales, louder in the room than he’d like them to be.

“Lu Han,” he decides to provide. He’d rather have them call him by his name, instead of John Doe, or _Soldier_. “How long have I been here?”

“Two weeks, or so,” Yixing replies, and it almost makes Lu Han jolt in his seat—that is, if he were in the capacity to do so. As it is, he can barely feel his legs, and his entire body feels too heavy for him to move, except maybe to turn his head.

But _two weeks_ —that’s a massive amount of time. Lu Han wonders if the Academy has sent someone, in that time, to look for him. He wonders if Yifan has tried to contact him. He wonders if Yifan thinks he’s dead.

He needs to go back. Lu Han belongs on the battlefield, and nowhere else—definitely not in a hospital, useless and broken.

“When can I leave?” he asks, and tries not to cringe at how desperate he sounds.

However, Baekhyun only raises an eyebrow at him, unimpressed. “Not anytime soon, soldier,” he says with a final tone. Lu Han hates how he still isn’t calling him by his name. “You’re barely alive as it is. You need at least a month within our facilities to be back in shape, and maybe a few more before you can rejoin the Academy’s ranks.”

“How do you know of the Academy?” Lu Han inquires, surprised. Isn’t the Academy a secret within the Party? How does Baekhyun know about it? Is this hospital affiliated with the Academy, or the Party itself?

However, it seems like Baekhyun is not inclined to give him answers. “I just do,” is all he offers with a shrug. “Good to see you’re fine, though. It’s good to see, really.”

With those words, he leaves the room, but not before nodding to Yixing, small and barely there to see.

“You should rest,” Taeyeon says next to him. She’s seemingly making to leave, gathering materials in a tray and not looking directly at Lu Han as she speaks. “You need it.”

Lu Han doesn’t reply. He watches as Taeyeon leaves in turn, hurried steps carrying her out of the room.

When it’s only him and Yixing, the latter speaks up, voice still infinitely soft, but carrying a firm and steady tone to it. Lu Han has grown accustomed to it, now. “Mind if I ask you a few questions? I’m just terribly curious, you see.”

Lu Han turns to look at him properly. His black hair is combed neatly away from his face, sharp collarbones and pretty soft lips still curved into a smile Lu Han can’t make sense of. There’s something challenging in his eyes as he waits for Lu Han’s reply, but it’s still patient, not pressing.

He isn’t sure why Yixing is so different, so open and seemingly kind.

“You can ask your questions,” Lu Han says. “But I can’t guarantee I’ll answer.”

Yixing nods slowly, contemplating. “Okay. It’s worth the try.” It’s only when he claps his hand together that Lu Han notices he still had one of them over his own clasped hands this entire time. “First. How old are you?”

That’s harmless enough. “Twenty-seven,” Lu Han replies easily. “You?” He figures there’s no hurt in asking himself.

“Twenty-five,” Yixing answers almost immediately, like he was expecting it. Lu Han wonders if he was. “Baekhyun is my age, too, but I’m a few months older than him.”

Lu Han isn’t sure where this is going, but again—it’s harmless, and he doesn’t hate the company. The itch of leaving still makes him squirm, but he quiets it down for now. “It’s impressive,” he says passively. “A doctor at that age.”

“Well,” Yixing sighs, “you know how the Academy does things. He’s been training for it for a long time.”

The Academy trains physicians? Why does it feel like Baekhyun, and now Yixing, know more about the Academy—the closest thing to a family, to any type of belonging Lu Han has ever known—than he does? He’s a _soldier_ —newly appointed, sure, and still a Novice, but Lu Han is still a soldier, a member of the Academy, chosen by the Party to fight, to protect, to bring pride and glory to his land.

He doesn’t let any of his doubts show, though—he only nods slowly at Yixing’s words, closing his eyes momentarily, soaking in the heat of his surroundings. Taeyeon was right, it seems—he really needs the rest, after all.

Maybe leaving will have to wait. Definitely not a month away, but maybe… maybe a few days, at most. A week, if he absolutely has to stay.

“When did you join the Academy?” Yixing’s voice asks.

Lu Han doesn’t answer that one. He remains still, eyes closed and trying to breathe through his nose instead of his mouth. It’s a few moments before Yixing speaks again. “Alright, got it. I joined when I was fourteen. A late-bloomer, I guess?” he chuckles slightly.

Lu Han almost frowns at that, before he stops himself. How could Yixing join the Academy at fourteen years old? That’s awfully old, by the Party’s standards. After all, Lu Han started fighting at seventeen, and that was after seven years of rigorous training. He barely remembers a life before that.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Yixing continues. Lu Han swallows. “I had my reasons, though. And I’m pretty skilled, so. I made the cut nonetheless. Maybe it was all luck, maybe it was fate, who knows?”

Fate? There’s no such thing as Fate, Lu Han wants to argue. That’s one thing the Academy has taught him. If Yixing isn’t lying, he should know that, too. “You’re pretty damn lucky, then,” Lu Han whispers. He knows Yixing can hear, in the calm of the room.

Yixing’s low hum is reassuring, like this, with the back of his eyelids staring back at Lu Han. After all, Yixing’s voice was the only one he had grown used to, in the seemingly two weeks’ time he has spent in this hospital bed.

The thought of not exactly knowing where he is, if he’s been sought for, suddenly hits him again. It’s icy and washes cold all over him, his heart constricting painfully in his chest in a way that’s more painful that the bruises covering his entire body.

“I need to leave,” he lets out, or thinks he does. It’s said with such a small voice he isn’t sure the words made it out of his mouth for a fleeting moment.

“No, you don’t.” Yixing’s voice is firm when he answers him. Lu Han hears the soft rustle of clothes, before steps resonate in the room, walking further and further away from him. When the steps stop, the voice speaks up again, further away this time but firm nonetheless. “Get some rest, Lu Han. It was nice to finally meet you.”

With that, Yixing leaves—Lu Han knows, because there’s a few more steps, before the click of the door can be heard before silence takes over, deafening.

***

Lu Han’s dreams are filled with ash and dust.

They often unfold the same way—his lungs constrict violently, stealing the air away from him, making it impossible to breathe. Through the screen of tears covering his eyes, dark shapes move around him, black and gray and blood red against the unclear horizon, undecipherable in the thick smoke that covers the area.

He dreams about dying, about being saved. Lu Han dreams about fighting, a relentless battle he never had the chance to see the end of. He dreams of a cycle he’s spent his entire life learning about suddenly coming to an end, an end he was never supposed to find out about.

Things explode, dust takes over, flames lick higher up in the sky. The sun seems to be burning even brighter, but it’s lacking its usual comforting warmth—it looks dangerous, like this, red behind the clouds of smoke.

For the first time, in his dreams, Lu Han feels fear lodging itself somewhere deep and profound in his chest, choking him. When he wakes up, for one, two, three seconds, it feels as though he cannot breathe, and he almost believes himself to be on the battlefield again, convinced to be dying for real, this time.

Then, he notices the white of his bed sheets, of his hospital gown, of the walls around him. The smell of antiseptic products and clean laundry overtakes his lungs, clear and devoid of ashes, and he gasps, every time.

No matter how many times he tries to sleep in one night, the same dream comes haunting him each time.

***

“Good morning, charming.”

Lu Han finds it hard to open his eyes. As little sleep as he’s gotten these past few days, he still doesn’t find the energy to actually flutter his eyelids open, let the light directly hit his eyes, get accustomed to faces he doesn’t know and company he’d rather not have.

He still itches to _leave_. It simply won’t leave him, despite the fact that his legs feel heavier than they used to—especially the left—and that his lungs can barely contain the oxygen he keeps trying to breathe through.

“I’m not charming,” he huffs. His voice is hoarse; he hasn’t spoken much these past few days.

“Right alright, Mr. Gruff Soldier,” someone—Baekhyun, Lu Han realizes—replies, footsteps approaching his bedside. “Not a morning person, are we? Neither am I. I can relate.”

The Academy doesn’t let you choose not to be a morning person, but Lu Han decides to keep quiet. They’re probably sick of hearing him talk or ask about the Academy, the Party, his companions. Someone must have been looking for him, right?

Yifan. Yifan must be looking. Lu Han trusts him to be.

“Just running a quick check-up, kid,” Baekhyun mumbles, much closer than he was moments before. Then, Lu Han feels a hand on his forehead, another at his wrist, the touch delicate but clinical, devoid of warmth. “Yixing should come by and keep you company soon, you won’t have to pretend you like me for any longer.”

Lu Han doesn’t exactly mind Baekhyun. It’s just that he’d rather not have met him at all, because of what he _is_ —a doctor—and what it _means_ , to him—the fact that he’s here, in a hospital bed, helpless and broken and _useless_.

But he doesn’t voice any of that out loud. “Don’t call me kid. I’m older than you.”

“I’m aware,” Baekhyun says, and it sounds like he’s smirking. Lu Han still won’t open his eyes, though he sees figures moving behind his eyelids. “Yixing won’t shut up about you. I can only hope he’s just as eager talking to you about me as he is to me about you.”

Again, Lu Han ignores Baekhyun’s words. “Can I leave soon, doctor?”

Baekhyun stops moving, his hands stilling against Lu Han’s skin. He hears him sigh loudly, before suddenly, a thumb brushes at his eyebrow, pulling at the skin and opening his eye. A bleak, blurry figure stares back at him—he presumes it’s Baekhyun, and it looks like he’s trying to get his attention.

“You’re barely alive enough to be able to lie down and sit, and you can barely walk to the bathroom. Let alone fucking _leave_ this hospital. What are you gonna do next, then, soldier, huh? Regain the Party’s troops in crutches and an oxygen mask?” Baekhyun lets go of him, and Lu Han hears the beeping and wheezing of the hologram screens that contain his medical files opening above his head.

Despite the bite of Baekhyun’s words—and they truly _sting_ , Lu Han winces internally—he also notices how they’re said almost empathetically, like he knows what this might mean to Lu Han, even just vaguely, just a little. He doesn’t know if it’s understanding or pity that drives Baekhyun’s tone, though. “I can try.”

Baekhyun tuts, tone almost melodious. “Nuh-uh. Not with that corpse of yours, you won’t.”

Before Lu Han can reply, he hears another voice ringing through the walls, and it prompts his eyes open as soon as it speaks. “He’s not a corpse, Baekhyun. Lu Han here is a respectable military agent.”

When he opens his eyes, Lu Han sees Yixing walking in, hair down and tickling at his lashes, fanned over his forehead. He squashes down the heavy load of lead pulling itself down inside his stomach.

Yixing comes to sit next to Baekhyun, on Lu Han’s right, nodding quietly. Lu Han closes his eyes again.

“Not a corpse, granted,” Baekhyun sighs. “But still just a Novice.” Lu Han tries not to growl at him. Baekhyun only slightly chuckles, again. “Cynical jokes aside, you are doing better, soldier.”

“Stop calling me that.”

Baekhyun continues as though Lu Han hadn’t spoken a word. “You’re still not fit to leave, though. As I told you, you won’t be for another month or so. Even more than that, maybe. Why don’t you get used to it already?”

“Baekhyun,” Yixing warns, and Lu Han doesn’t know what it means. “Get off his case, yeah?”

Lu Han hears the ruffle of clothes, and a loud sigh that surely belongs to Baekhyun resonating all across the room. “You’re lucky Yixing seems to like you,” he hears him say. “As charming as you do look and seem to be, you come off as quite cold, soldier. Try to be a little friendlier, would you?”

“And _you_ should act less like quite a brat, doctor.”

“Stop it. Both of you,” Yixing sighs. “Baekhyun, the patient in 908 is waiting.”

“Right, sure. I’m letting you two bond over… whatever it is you talk about.” Baekhyun’s voice grows fainter, and Lu Han supposes he’s either storming or waltzing through the door, God only knows. “I’ll see you around, kid! You too, Xing.”

Yixing’s chuckle covers the sound of Baekhyun’s retreating footsteps, and it’s only when he hears the click of the door that Lu Han opens his eyes again. This time, he takes his time to adjust them to the light, before letting them rest on Yixing’s figure, focused on the papers he has laid out next to Lu Han’s covered legs on the bed. “Is he always that insufferable?” Lu Han asks.

Yixing looks up, a tiny surprised smile on his lips. “Baekhyun? Absolutely. But it’s part of his charm, really.”

“I fail to see it.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

“I’d rather not.” That would mean staying, likely even for longer than he’s supposed to, which is already way too many days and weeks than he’d like to admit. But rather than tackling that issue again, he quickly changes the subject. “You’re still writing on paper?”

“I keep some records on paper still, yeah,” Yixing replies. He looks down at his documents, grabs a pen from his blouse pocket and seemingly scribbles something on one of the sheets. “I’d rather not rely on those hologram files all the time.”

Lu Han snorts. How terribly old-fashioned, and somehow typically Yixing-like—not that he would notice things like this, having known him for only so little time, but there’s just something about it that _fits_ with the persona Yixing has presented him with since the first time they spoke. “I haven’t seen anyone use paper since…” Well. Lu Han can’t remember.

After a moment, Yixing shrugs as though he catches on the fact that Lu Han isn’t intent on finishing his sentence anymore. “Call me old-school, but… It helps me, to write things down.”

“Like what?”

Yixing snorts. “Like your daily recovery progress. I’m not writing stories, Lu Han.”

Lu Han doesn’t reply to that. He only nods, before closing his eyes, replaying his name spoken in Yixing’s voice a few times in his head.

The way Yixing says his name, like they’re long lost friends and have known each other for the longest times, sometimes makes Lu Han wonder of a life he’s never had—a life with a childhood he remembers and friends, growing up, rather than brothers in arms, something… different. Normal.

He hates it. He just wants his life to get back to normal, _his_ normal—honouring his duty, fighting, doing what he’s been trained his entire life to do. That much is much less confusing than the time he spends in this hospital, left on his own devices to constantly think and rethink things he shouldn’t even be doubting at all.

“You’re quiet, today,” Yixing cuts through the storm of thoughts in his head. His voice is just as levelled, as calming and irritatingly kind as it was moments before.

“I’m always quiet,” Lu Han replies. “You’re the one who pushes me to talk, usually.”

The hum that answers him is thoughtful. “I see. So if I don’t fish for your thoughts, you won’t be willing to share them?”

 _No. I don’t share my thoughts with anyone_ , Lu Han wants to say. He’s not wired to do this—he’s meant to _fight_ , for God’s sake, he’s not supposed to be here, he’s not meant for conversation with a too kind nurse in an unfamiliar hospital, good enough to be considered _dead_ —

“I have too many of them,” Lu Han says instead. He doesn’t know why. Maybe it’s time the monologue in his head changes its script. “Too many thoughts. And they make little sense.”

“We could sort them out.”

“I’d rather we didn’t.”

Yixing sighs next to him. Lu Han feels something moving next to his body, and opens his eyes to see the nurse pick up his papers to stack them on the bedside table, before scooting his chair closer to Lu Han’s upper body and staring at him directly. “Fine, then. Let’s just talk. Make some new thoughts for you to ponder on so you can forget about everything else.”

“Who says I need to forget about anything?” Lu Han inquires, because he hates how easily Yixing seems to read him, even though he’s shared close to nothing with the guy, after a few days of scattered discussion. They only know each other’s names, ages, and stuff like favourite colours, and all that crap—only because Yixing insistently asks, and Lu Han cannot bear to ignore him, for some reason.

Yixing tilts his head at his question, eyes looking far more grave, more knowing than Lu Han has ever seen them. “You don’t need to say anything for me to make a few wild guesses.” His head tilts again, on the other side, eyes quickly scanning Lu Han’s face. He feels himself flush under the attention. “Seems like I was right about some of them.”

“What do you want to talk about?” Lu Han is quick to change the subject, to shift the focus _away_ from him, as soon as possible.

“Food!” Yixing claps his hands, and Lu Han tries not to startle. That would be embarrassing. He’s glad Yifan isn’t here, watching him. “Who doesn’t like food, right? What’s your favourite meal?”

Lu Han wants to snort. “I haven’t had to think about that in years.” He usually inhales whatever shit Yifan gives him, whether it be dehydrated goods handed by the Academy or some berries they pick up on their way.

“Good. Now you have all the time in the world to do so.”

“You don’t have to remind me of that, you know.” He’s just fine not thinking about where he is and all the time he has in his hands.

“Why not? There’s nothing wrong with having some time away,” Yixing still persists. Is he always like that, Lu Han asks himself? Constantly prodding and curious and annoyingly impossible to resist? “And I’d like to think I’m not terrible company, am I?”

Lu Han looks at him, at his tiny knowing smile and the gentle edges of his eyes. _Annoying_. Yes. But… “You’re not so bad, no,” he’s willing to admit. Better have Yixing keep him company than spend his days lamenting his state and constantly bugging Baekhyun for an occasion to leave. “So what’s _your_ favourite meal, then?”

“I don’t know, actually,” Yixing shrugs. “I like a lot of things. Oh, that reminds me—which do you prefer? Sweet or salty things?”

He ignores the fact that Yixing hasn’t answered his question. It’s trivial enough that he doesn’t really care. “I don’t really know,” he answers honestly instead. What did Lu Han use to like, before the Academy? It was so long ago, he barely remembers. “I liked tea, when I was younger.”

“Sweet tea?”

“Mmh. Actually…” Memories come rushing suddenly at him, memories he thought were completely forgotten. “My mom, she would… she would sweeten the tea with blackberry leaves, you know the ones? I guess everyone does that, though. But it was special, when _she_ would do it.” He sees her kind smile, though the image is dark and blurry in his head. “I thought I had forgotten, but I guess not.”

“That sounds like a lovely memory,” Yixing hums next to him. “I miss my mom’s cooking too, a lot.”

“I haven’t had it since I was ten,” Lu Han admits. He doesn’t know what prompts him to be so honest, but he supposes it’s harmless enough. Yixing probably doesn’t care about any of what he’s saying anyway, and is most likely to forget all about it by the time he leaves the room. Lu Han can indulge in the company, in having someone else to talk to and share his thoughts with. “I barely remember what it tastes like.”

“I saw my mom about two months ago, actually,” Yixing smiles, but it’s wistful. “If you want, next time I go back, I’ll grab something from her kitchen. Any mom’s food is good food, isn’t it?”

Next time? When is that gonna be, in another two or three months? Lu Han would hope he’s not around by that time, actually, but he doesn’t have the heart to tell Yixing, not now. “Sure,” he says, and tries to pour as much enthusiasm into his voice as possible. “But I doubt it’ll be as good as my mom’s cooking.”

“You just said you didn’t remember how it tastes like!”

“Maybe not,” he tries to smile—he’s still a little weak, after all, “but I do remember she was the best cook in the world. That’s hard to beat, you know.”

“You only say that because she’s your mom,” Yixing teases, and Lu Han finds himself appreciating it.

He hates it, but… “Probably, yeah.”

After a short silence, spent watching Yixing smile down at his hand—it’s resting above Lu Han’s arm, warm even through the cotton sheets—he speaks up, looking up to Lu Han with careful eyes. “Do you miss her?”

“Who?” he asks, though they probably both know who Yixing is talking about.

But Yixing answers nonetheless. “Your mother. Do you miss her?”

And just like that, Lu Han puts his walls back up—he moves away from Yixing’s touch, he closes his eyes again. Having Yixing to talk to is nice, yes—but he can’t let himself get lost in it too quickly, or at all, in fact. Lu Han remains a soldier, and Yixing is nobody but the nurse who’s taking care of him while he recovers. Yixing is not a friend. Lu Han has no friends.

He has Yifan, but even Yifan… it’s complicated.

“The taste of her food isn’t the only thing about her I do not recall,” Lu Han chooses to provide. It’s honest enough, and he doesn’t need to explain himself for Yixing to understand.

“Oh.” The word was barely breathed out, and Lu Han wants to sigh. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I don’t need memories on the battlefield.”

“Right. Of course.” Yixing’s tone has turned sour, and Lu Han convinces himself it’s a good thing. That way, he’ll be left alone, and Yixing won’t press with incessant questions. “Are you still thinking about going back out there?”

“Will you let me out, then?” Lu Han chances an eye open, and finds Yixing looking at him worriedly, almost resolutely.

Yixing pursues his lips, and stands up as he picks up his documents from the table. Lu Han had forgotten about them. “Rest well, Lu Han. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Right.” Of course. He doesn’t dwell on the fact that Yixing’s sudden change in mood tastes sour even on his tongue. “See you tomorrow, Yixing.”

It takes barely five seconds—and Yixing is gone, and Lu Han tries to sleep, without the nightmares, this time.

***

It starts off just like that—small talk in the mornings, sometimes extending itself to the afternoon. On some days, Yixing only comes in the evening, and stays until Lu Han falls asleep.

At first, Lu Han doesn’t understand—he’s nowhere as interesting as Yixing seemingly believes him to be. He’s just a soldier of the Party. He’s nothing without his uniform on his shoulders and the battlefield around him. What is it that has Yixing coming back almost every day, just to keep him company? Why is he so eager to hear Lu Han speak, about nothing and everything, but suddenly closes off as soon as Lu Han breaches the topic he desperately wants to discuss?

Yixing will tell him all about his life before the Academy, or the various people he met there, while completing his studies. He’ll tell him about his and Baekhyun’s mischiefs, as they spent many years together at the Academy and now at the hospital. He’ll tell him things about himself, about the other patients, the other nurses and doctors. But not once will he tell him more about the Academy—that is, about the things Lu Han doesn’t apparently know—and he won’t answer Lu Han’s questions about it, either. Zhang Yixing is an enigma, even behind his startling openness.

It only makes Lu Han more curious, and more antsy to leave, to find those answers for himself—and the more time he spends at the hospital, the more this animosity conflicts with his simple desire to just regain the battlefield, already; the one place he belongs. And so he starts asking Yixing about leaving, more and more often, and Yixing constantly recoils, brushes off his remarks, reminds him to watch out for the calm of the night rather than wonder about such silly things.

Until, one evening, something changes.

At first, everything seems atrociously usual, plain, just like every other day. It’s a routine Lu Han hates as much as it also stirs something in him, something that makes him long for Yixing’s company, for his words that don’t make sense and his ridiculous questions and the edge of his voice that always sounds like he knows something he never wants to reveal.

Yixing has just come in, seated by Lu Han’s bedside as he often is, jotting down notes in his papers—ridiculous, really—with a concentrated air and no words falling out of his lips. Lu Han misses them greatly; the only company he’s had today was in the form of a very sweet but not so companionable Taeyeon, checking up on him a few times throughout the day and only ever staying a few minutes at a time. It’s late evening now, and though Lu Han hates to admit it, he longs for Yixing’s voice, for a conversation of any sort.

“Am I dying?” he prompts in the silence.

Yixing startles, looks at him with wide, alarmed eyes. “What? Why—aren’t you feeling any better? Is there something we forgot to take a look at, or maybe—”

“God, no, Yixing,” Lu Han says, and breaks off in a tiny laugh. “I was joking. I’m as perfectly fine and thoroughly bored as I’ve been for the past two weeks.”

It has already been two weeks. Lu Han squashes the thought down, swallows around it.

But Yixing doesn’t see that; he only sees the small smile Lu Han is showing him, and rolls his eyes at him. “Don’t scare me like this. There’s enough dying that happens inside and outside these walls.”

Ah. “Well that’s a surprisingly depressing thought,” Lu Han mutters, closes his eyes. He hopes he doesn’t fall asleep soon. He still wants to hear what Yixing has to tell him today, and would definitely not want to miss it in favour of his nightmares which simply won’t stop.

“Is it really, though?” Yixing asks, voice soft. Lu Han hears the familiar sound of paper sheets being moved around, before the noise stops and he feels a warm weight next to him on the bed; Yixing’s hands, most probably. “I mean, I guess it is, but… We’re in a hospital, affiliated to the Academy. You know what the Academy _does_. You’re a soldier, formed there. You also know what they teach kids like you to do, out there.” There’s a tutting sound, something between a snort or something else, more bitter, more… “Death is inevitable, in any case. It’s depressing, but not at all surprising, if you ask me.”

Lu Han knows an opening when he sees one. He doesn’t want to miss this chance—this one time to finally, _finally_ get his answers, or just a sliver of something that Yixing does such a great job at keeping at bay, away from Lu Han’s prying questions. Yet, he finds himself unable to find his words, simply because he doesn’t entirely understand what Yixing means.

He knows the teachings of the Academy aren’t peaceful, far from it—he’s the product of it, the living truth of the Academy’s doings. But those teachings and methods strive for an _ideal_ , something so much bigger, and… “That’s different,” Lu Han says after a moment.

“What is?”

“The death of our own, and the death of an enemy,” he thinks he says. That must be it, right? It’s the reason why the Academy is so adamant about constantly winning, never failing. It is because even though Lu Han would readily give up his own life for the Party, he knows it is more valuable than his enemy’s, and will do anything to conquer, to triumph, to stomp down on whomever or whatever might come across and threaten his motherland. “It’s different.”

“Dying is dying,” Yixing retorts immediately, bitterly. “The death of an innocent, even your enemy, is just as deplorable as the death of a companion. You shouldn’t make a distinction.”

“Except there _is_ a distinction to be made,” Lu Han starts to argue, opening his eyes, but he can’t put another word in before Yixing interrupts him once more.

“No, there isn’t.” The tone of voice he uses is just as vehement as it was earlier, but it’s whispering now. It makes Lu Han listen intently, even as he disagrees. “This hospital welcomes soldiers of the Party like you just like it does prisoners of war, too. And when they’re wearing the same white gown, gasping in pain the same way, crying, _begging_.” Yixing lays hard, piercing eyes on Lu Han, unyielding, and Lu Han thinks fleetingly he must be mocking him. “When you see these things, you realize there’s no goddamn distinction to be made. Dying is dying. It’s pitiful on either accounts.”

Something icy, bitter, awfully uncomfortable washes through Lu Han, and it makes him want to scream at Yixing about how wrong he is—except it feels like it would be such a foolish thing to do, such a foolish thing to _say_ , and he isn’t sure anymore if he’s trying to convince the nurse or himself.

But something else catches his attention—the tight grip Yixing’s hand has on his arm, vice-like and unbending, and Lu Han tries to move his hand, shaking free from Yixing’s grasp. At the motion, Yixing looks down, as if waking up, and lets go at once, bringing back his hands onto his lap.

“You were taught at the Academy like I was,” Lu Han starts, keeping his voice just as low as Yixing’s own. “And yet you speak like…” Not like a rebel, no; nor a dissident. That’s not what Yixing sounds like. “You sound like an idealist.”

“And you sound like the Academy’s fucking textbook, sometimes, Lu Han,” Yixing says bitterly, but his tone softens, and Lu Han has an urge to look down, shy away from Yixing’s sudden attention, _warmth_ , that feels so misplaced. “I was taught at the Academy, yes. But I didn’t let them brainwash me. I got what I wanted from them, not the other way around.”

“It’s not brainwashing!” Lu Han starts to defend, and he has to stop immediately. His head is growing dizzy, and the oxygen does weird things to his lungs. “It’s… it’s not…”

“Get some rest, it’s getting late,” Yixing starts to say, and _no._ This is _not_ how it was supposed to go, Lu Han is only left with more questions than answers at this point, and he feels like he’s about to explode, and has a feeling that if he doesn’t try himself now, he won’t ever get another chance to have Yixing open up to him about anything at all, ever.

“Why did you join, then?” Lu Han demands, voice desperate, sounding way too breathless for his taste and he wants Yixing to stay. “What was it that you wanted from the Academy?”

Yixing stops, stares at Lu Han with eyes that are undecipherable, yet so open, and Lu Han wants to get lost in them, and he doesn’t understand the swarm of feelings that constantly surge up whenever he feels Yixing’s gaze on him. He isn’t _made_ for feeling things, he isn’t made for thinking and discussing and sitting in a hospital bed all day—yet here he is, contradicting all these beliefs, all at once.

“Knowledge,” Yixing answers, voice steady. “And revenge.”

“Revenge?”

“You’re awfully curious, tonight.”

“Isn’t that what you want from me?”

Yixing stays quiet, only raising an eyebrow and nodding slowly. “Perhaps. But let’s not do this tonight. It is getting quite late.” It’s ridiculous, and they both know it—on an usual night, Yixing would stay for hours longer, but the atmosphere is tight and hard to breathe through, right now. “I’ll answer your questions another time.”

He gets up, and Lu Han, desperate, catches his hand, grasps it so tightly Yixing jumps under his touch. Yixing’s hand is warm, soft against his own. “Promise me,” he breathes out, eyes boring into Yixing’s like he wants him to know, will only ever let himself be an open book right here and now so that Yixing tells him all he knows, so that he gets the answers he’s craving for and maybe, through it all, a way to leave this place.

Even if he isn’t sure that’s what he wants, anymore.

“I don’t make promises,” Yixing replies, squeezing Lu Han’s hand gently, and Lu Han shivers. He wants to let go, but doesn’t. “That’s one thing the Academy has taught me.”

Lu Han bites his lip, wants to cry; he never cries, except that one time on the battlefield that gets replayed far too often in his dreams. He never used to have nightmares, he realizes suddenly, violently.

What has gotten him so lost, so messed up and begging for Yixing’s words like a bloody lifeline? And why is Yixing speaking in riddles? Why is the thought of the battlefield so haunting now, when it was invigorating these past ten years?

Why does it feel like his reality is turning upside down, intangible and so fucking fragile, making him feel so goddamn vulnerable?

All these questions come rushing at him at once, overwhelming and screaming inside his head and begging for his attention. Lu Han can’t breathe. He thinks he sees the ashes, the dirt, the fog; he thinks he can hear the bombing, Yifan’s voice screaming orders. It’s like one of his nightmares, except he’s very much awake, albeit lost, and Yixing somehow fits amongst it all, odd and unruly.

He doesn’t realize Yixing has a hand on his forehead until he speaks, voice so much closer and infinitely softer than it was moments before. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” rasps Lu Han, but it sounds off even to his ears. Slowly, the hospital room comes back to him, all white, so much white.

Yixing’s eyes are two pools of black and warmth, his face so close Lu Han tries to recoil, digging deeper into his pillow. He could stare a little longer, he wonders fleetingly. “You should sleep,” Yixing murmurs, and Lu Han’s heart quickens.

“I can’t.” He can’t sleep—the nightmares will come back, and he doesn’t want them there as he doesn’t understand _why_ they keep haunting him.

The hand against his forehead is pushing away his hair, stroking gently, and the urge to cry is stronger now than ever. “You’re safe here. The nightmares aren’t real.” How does Yixing know of the nightmares? Did Lu Han speak out loud without meaning to?

“Could you stay?” he hears himself ask. He didn’t mean to say that, either.

He doesn’t hear Yixing’s reply. Sleep pulls at his limbs and curls around them, pulling him in, and there’s only a warm, faint touch against his forehead when he falls asleep, in spite of an answer.

***

When Lu Han wakes up, hours later with the light skirting through his eyelashes, Yixing is nowhere to be seen.

At first, sleep is still too heavy in him for him to think anything of it, really. He still feels incredibly heavy, and the morphine hasn’t kicked in fully and he can feel a faint throbbing at his leg. His lungs feel worn, tired, like the rest of him, and he sighs through it, pulling in as much oxygen as he can, stretching as he slowly wakes.

Halfway through, as the confusion that comes with waking up slowly fades, the memory of the night before comes back to him almost violently—and with it, the urgent need to see Yixing, to make sure he’s still here, he has kept his promise, he—

Lu Han scrambles to sit up, eyes wild looking across the room. He only catches sight of Baekhyun, sorting through papers—Yixing’s, Lu Han realizes—who looks up just when Lu Han is about to speak.

Baekhyun beats him to it. “Are you alright? Do you need something? You look pale, suddenly, and—”

“Is Yixing here?” asks Lu Han, and he hates how breathless he sounds, how dependent, like he can’t take of himself, like he _needs_ Yixing to be here—not like he doesn’t, but it’s not like he _does_ , either; it’s… complicated—and Lu Han wants Baekhyun to stop looking at him like this.

Like _this_ , like he’s a pitiful sight, especially as Baekhyun’s eyes flood with relief and understanding, and then… is that fondness in his eyes? “Yixing went to fetch coffee before his shift. He would probably get you some too, soldier, if… you know. Your body could take it.”

Lu Han deflates on his bed, and sighs. Baekhyun’s character is humorous, gentle, and quite lively, but right now, he isn’t sure he can take it. “Piss off.”

“Wow. _Someone’s_ being an asshole, this morning.” Baekhyun walks to his right side, clicks through the hologram screens that show up above his head. “I _can_ ask Yixing to get you coffee, if you must. Might fuck up your system but it might just help with your sour mood, after all.”

Lu Han could use a cup of coffee, or a hand to hold, or something more drastic and nonsensical like a punch in the face or such as equally brusque. “I’m fine,” he assures Baekhyun.

He _is_ , truly. He was just slightly confused, upon waking up—and after a decent night of sleep, he thinks the urgency and fear he had felt so strongly the night before and a few moments ago were surely due to his fatigue, mixed with the seeming affection he has grown for Yixing over time. The man is his nurse, after all, and the only person he gets to meet with and talk to every day since his prolonged stay at the hospital. Growing attached was meant to happen. Overreacting a little, under the pretext of exhaustion, was only a consequence of his conditions, however, and nothing more.

The curiosity remains. The fear subsides, but is muted, and Lu Han can deal with that. So really—all in all, he’s fine.

But Baekhyun looks far from convinced. He raises an eyebrow, unbelieving. “Yeah, sure you are. You totally didn’t look like you would have screamed your lungs out for Yixing if I hadn’t told you of his whereabouts—”

“Told who about what?”

Lu Han freezes. Yixing didn’t hear that, did he? No, he didn’t, as he wouldn’t have asked that question if he had. Right? Right.

He watches him walk in the room, offering a cardboard cup to Baekhyun, who takes it gingerly and with a warm smile. Yixing replies with one of his own, and a peck on the crown of Baekhyun’s head, against his hair. The gesture remains friendly and nothing more, Lu Han can’t help but hope—no, _notice_.

“Nothing,” Baekhyun answers belatedly. “Here, I’ll leave you to it. Seems like you guys have some business to discuss.”

Sometimes, Lu Han wonders if Baekhyun leaves so quickly to escape him, or Yixing with him, or if he’s really just as busy as he pretends to be. He is a physician, after all, and if Lu Han’s presence is anything to go by, the patients they get here do need his expertise.

Yixing, this time, doesn’t bother replying to Baekhyun. He goes straight to Lu Han, sitting not on his usual chair but on the bed, and brings a hand directly to his forehead. “Hey. Feeling better?”

Lu Han melts, jumps under the warmth of Yixing’s hand, shivers as his fingertips press against his scalp and thread through the thin hair at the edge of his hairline. Yixing’s touch shouldn’t make him feel so much. “I don’t know,” he replies honestly. “But I think so, yeah.”

Nodding slowly, Yixing hums, eyes pensive. “Your fever seems to be acting up,” he explains. His voice is steady, calm, soft, the way it always is. “You shouldn’t be thinking so hard that it messes up your body like that.”

Oh, how convenient. Lu Han would give anything not to be overthinking the way he is, right now—but his thoughts are eating him from the inside out, and the conversation from the night before is coming back to him in small parcels. It’s hard to think through it, but he tries—and the bits he gets are all the more… nonsensical.

“You did this to me,” Lu Han chooses to reply, closing his eyes. “You got me thinking too much.”

Yixing hums again, like he agrees with Lu Han—or that he ponders his words, their implications. “Do you want help sorting through your thoughts, then?”

Of course. That sounds like something Yixing would say.

He feels Yixing’s hand still on his skin, and the tone of his voice acts like a blanket all around his body. But Lu Han doesn’t forget the strong, vehement tone it had taken only hours prior, the ice of his words, the determination in them.

There’s so much Lu Han wants to ask. There’s so much he _knows_ Yixing is hiding from him—and yet… “I don’t know where to start,” he admits with a chuckle.

He’s about to say more when Yixing suddenly claps his hands, and Lu Han opens his eyes suddenly. “Alright, then! I’ll make you stop right there. We have a busy day ahead anyway.”

Lu Han looks at Yixing, the warmth in his eyes that hasn’t faded one bit and that he doesn’t understand, as well as the underlying _something_ that’s putting him on edge and bringing back his urge to ask questions. “We do?”

Yixing nods, smoothing his hands over Lu Han’s sheets at his sides. He almost forgot Yixing still was so close—so _close_ , on Lu Han’s bed and not in his usual chair by the bedside. “We do. How’s your leg?”

“Painful,” Lu Han sighs, but he answers distractedly. He’s still searching Yixing’s eyes, trying to pinpoint that _something_. “But better, I guess. I’ve been here for two weeks, after all. Must’ve helped.”

“Good, ‘cause we’re starting your physiotherapy today, soldier,” Yixing winks, and Lu Han is so taken aback by the gesture—and Yixing’s _words_ , damn it—that he gapes at him, shell-shocked.

“What?”

“You’re going to start walking again, idiot,” Yixing tuts, standing up and reaching for his papers. He still makes a job at opening up his screens, above the bedhead, and Lu Han only watches him, still a little confused. “You can’t stay scooped up in this bed. I’ll come fetch you in a tick, so you’d better get ready in there,” Yixing adds, tapping a gentle finger against his temple.

If Lu Han shivers, neither of them mention it.

When—just _when_ did he start feeling so much, so many emotions, at the sight or the touch of Yixing? Sure, maybe Lu Han has always suspected Yixing wasn’t exactly like everyone else in this hospital—hell, he is surely unique enough to stand out amongst all the people Lu Han has met his entire life. It’s in the warmth of his gaze and the brightness they hold and the so many more things hidden in them. It’s in the dimple in his cheeks and the delicacy of his movements matched with the definite force of character he possesses and the grace of his entire being, that doesn’t deter his strength.

Lu Han swallows. “Alright,” he says. He tries to move his toes, and when he feels his leg throb, he asks, “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

Yixing nods at the foot of the bed. “Sure and certain. Baekhyun gave me the okay, and Baekhyun is far from a bad doctor. Trust me, will you?”

That’s asking a lot from Lu Han—and despite the joking tone Yixing used, despite the seemingly inoffensive tone his words truly have, he can’t help but think of everything he’s disclosed to Yixing already, and everything he still keeps hidden. He thinks of the things Yixing chooses to tell him, and the way he’s definitely holding back about so much more.

Lu Han was never taught to trust anybody. The only man he will ever choose to trust is himself.

And still, when he looks up to Yixing’s bright, questioning—and knowing—eyes, he nods slowly. “I’ll trust you, Yixing.”

***

Yixing's walks differ greatly from what Lu Han had imagined.

While he thought he would have a chance at exploring the grounds the hospital he's been staying at for weeks now—he has lost count, with time, but it must be three weeks or so, now—it turns out that the pair of them won't even make it past whichever floor Lu Han is staying on. Then again, it’s not like he could have expected anything else. It is ridiculous to even hope for anything more.

The halls are narrow, dark, and he shivers slightly as he notices none of the doors have windows. It's not something he had really thought about, at first—but it's something awfully striking, now; the absence of windows not just in the halls and at the room doors, but also inside them.

This place, whatever it is, is awfully isolated. Lu Han wonders just exactly _where_ it is, and if everything he's seemingly picked up on this place is completely off.

These halls seem haunted. Somewhere, at the back of his mind, something whispers to Lu Han it doesn't look much different from the Academy's dorms.

His leg is still throbbing with pain, and he winces, clenching his teeth and tightening his hands around the handles of the walker he’s supporting himself with. “This was a fucking terrible idea,” he mutters under his breath.

Lu Han feels useless and powerless and completely vulnerable. The entire hospital around him feels like a prison, and he hates how familiar it all looks, too; not exactly the place, but the feeling, of being enclosed and detached and having to rely on no one but himself.

Yixing, next to him, only chuckles. He has a steadying hand around Lu Han’s bicep, the other one hovering over the small of his back. Whenever Lu Han wobbles, the hand presses against him, stabilizing him and making something shoot up Lu Han’s spine and making him shudder each time.

“You have to start walking again, you know,” Yixing says, voice low. Even like this, though, it echoes against the walls, hollow and clear for Lu Han to hear. “If you ever want to regain your freedom, and everything.”

“Are you saying I’m a prisoner?” Now that he utters it out loud, Lu Han realizes it’s quite a pertinent question. For as long as he’s stayed in this place, after all, there hasn’t been one hint of who was in charge, or who Baekhyun, Yixing, Taeyeon, and everyone else answered to. Whispers of the Academy and the Party have been present, sure—but nothing solidified who was in authority, nothing confirmed the figure of power that stood above the establishment.

There’s only been mornings and evenings with a dimpled smile and a witty doctor checking up on Lu Han every so often. The thought, strangely enough, sits heavily in his stomach.

The halls are empty and dark and have no windows, and Lu Han feels like he’s slipping back into one of his nightmares. Something is enclosing itself around his heart, and—

“You aren’t,” Yixing’s voice cuts. “Prisoners aren’t allowed out of their rooms.”

“So there are prisoners here?” Lu Han asks, though his voice sounds hollow now as well, and he can barely focus on what’s around him. He only tightens his hands around the metal of his handles, and focuses on Yixing’s steadying touch on him.

“I never hid this from you, have I?” Yixing counters. He sounds awfully calm, for someone discussing a matter like war prisoners. “Though maybe I wasn’t clear enough. It’s not something I like to think about, anyway.”

“What even _is_ this place?”

“A hospital. Isn’t that obvious?”

“I’m not so sure, anymore.”

Yixing turns to him, and Lu Han settles his eyes on him, drinks in the curiosity in his eyes and tries to pick apart the challenge in them.

What does Yixing want from him? What’s hiding in his eyes—or in this hospital? Where is… when…

“I think it’s enough for today,” Yixing says. “Enough thinking. And walking. You should rest.”

At that, Lu Han scoffs. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Running away from my questions.”

Yixing has the audacity to smirk, though something flickers in his gaze, darkening in an instant. “Have a taste of your own medicine, then. Remember the times you would sulk instead of answering mine?”

“I…” Lu Han licks his lips. When did things turn around like this? When did Yixing’s curiosity became a matter of wonder to Lu Han, so much so that their roles got reversed? Except, Lu Han’s initial mutism—that hasn’t really stopped, in a way—was moved by something rooted deeper inside of him.

_Don’t trust the enemy. Don’t trust anyone but yourself._

Another voice, tender and so easily recognizable, with words spoken only moments before. _Trust me, will you?_

“You’re doing it again,” Yixing murmurs, infinitely closer. “Come on, let’s head back. You’ll raise your fever again with your constant thinking.”

The questions, thoughts, everything else, is lost at the tip of Lu Han’s tongue.

***

Lu Han’s dreams are filled with ash and dust, and something else.

They often unfold the same way—his lungs constrict violently, stealing the air away from him, making it impossible to breathe. Through the screen of tears covering his eyes, dark shapes move around him, black and gray and blood red against the unclear horizon, undecipherable in the thick smoke that covers the area.

He dreams about dying, about being saved. Lu Han dreams about fighting, a relentless battle he never had the chance to see the end of. He dreams of a cycle he’s spent his entire life learning about suddenly coming to an end, an end he was never supposed to find out about.

But it is different from before—this ending he sees, it’s so completely different from the glory he had imagined. Not that he’s ever had any way of knowing—but there’s something inherently wrong about it all, about the bombing that never exactly reaches places he expects them to go to, nor does he really have a clear picture of the enemy he’s been taught to fight for so many years now.

And there’s other thoughts, too, getting mixed with everything else—something like _hope_ , which he has long ago learned not to nurture because it weakens and it drives to spontaneity; something he cannot afford to act upon. Something clashing with the darkness and the emptiness around him starts to cloud his mind, images of a better life, of emotions he had thought were forgotten in the back of his mind. Lu Han feels himself driven by something so unfamiliar yet so profound, honest, so…

The battlefield seems foreign, and he doesn’t know his purpose anymore. When he wakes up, it isn’t in fear but in peace—or rather, in sad indifference, and he doesn’t _understand_.

The white of his bed sheets, of his hospital gown, of the walls around him, brings an odd yet unwelcome sense of comfort at their sight. The smell of antiseptic products and clean laundry overtakes his lungs, clear and devoid of ashes, and he doesn’t gasp, anymore. He just breathes it in.

No matter how many times he tries to sleep in one night, the same dream comes haunting him each time, and he’s only left more and more confused as the nights fly by.

***

“Is he alright?”

“I’m… I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

“What did you drill in his head, huh?”

“Nothing, Baekhyun, Christ. We just talk, we don’t discuss conspiracy theories.”

A low hum, followed by a short pause. “He’s the Academy’s perfect product, you realize that.”

“I’m well aware, yeah.”

“Yixing, he’s still _dangerous_ —”

“Oh, Baekhyun, please. He isn’t the first. He certainly won’t be the last. I have… I have faith in him.”

“You have more than just faith in him, Xing. Don’t take me for a fool. I’m your _best friend_.”

Yixing’s smile is so honest, even through the tone of his voice alone. “I know you are, Baekhyun. But really. Trust me on this. When have I ever been wrong?”

“I actually fucking hate the fact that you’re always right.”

“It’s part of my charm.”

“You really think he can change, though? You really think…”

Silence settles, but Yixing’s voice, when it speaks, is soft, lower in tone than before. “He’s already changing. And I don’t think it’s me alone. It’s only fair to give him a chance.”

“I fucking hope you’re not wrong about this.”

“I said—”

“Yeah, yeah, never wrong, you are. But there’s a first time to everything, isn’t there?”

“This won’t be it, Baekhyunnie. I promise.”

***

“When was this place built?” asks Lu Han. They’re walking, again, and he’s slowly getting used to it. The halls, however, feel just as thoroughly unwelcoming as they had that first time.

Next to him, Yixing is more relaxed, too; his arm is loose around Lu Han’s waist, but he isn’t distracted, as he straightens up whenever Lu Han ever so much as loses his balance slightly. Lu Han tries not to focus on the shadow of Yixing’s arm behind him.

“I’m not sure,” Yixing shrugs. He’s staring ahead, pensive. “Probably even before the Party took over.”

“That long ago?”

“The Party hasn’t been around forever,” Yixing snorts, but it’s humourless. “It’s been, what… fifty years, at most? I’ve been alive for half that time, so you know. It really hasn’t been a long time.”

Lu Han nods slowly. He’s twenty-seven himself, he realizes. Fifty years barely compare, in the end. “I’ve never really… considered. The Party has always been what I’ve known, the Academy.” He hums. “It’s quite fascinating, then.”

“What is?”

“The Party has built this amazing country in under five decades. We’re lifetimes away from what it used to be, before.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Yixing muses. His pace slows, and Lu Han follows. Though the halls are just as dark as they had been, the first time they’d been out on a walk like this one, Lu Han has learned to simply let Yixing’s voice swarm his thoughts, like they do when it’s just the two of them in his room. “A lot of things changed, yes. But not for the better. The good stuff, it’s in the little things. And few of those have changed, you know. People hold on to what makes them happy. And those things rarely change.”

Somehow, Lu Han has an idea of what Yixing might be referring to. It’s vague in his mind and he isn’t sure about it, but it’s in the way Yixing talks, the things he talks about, the little quirks he has, the questions he asks.

He asks anyway. “What things?”

The smile Yixing offers him is knowing and dimpled. It ties Lu Han’s stomach in knots he doesn’t mind having there. “Remember when you got here first? All those ridiculous things I asked you.”

“My favourite colour. My favourite meal. The kind of music I liked—”

“And then you, poor soul, said you _didn’t listen to music_ ,” Yixing recalls in half-scolding, half-shocked voice. “You know, I should introduce you to some bands, someday.”

He says that like they have all the time in the world. Lu Han wonders if they actually do. “It’s not my fault the Academy was so adamant about their entertainment rules.”

“You always bring up the Academy like it’s an excuse for everything,” Yixing says softly. “Look at me. I turned out alright despite everything, didn’t I?”

“You’re different from any other student I’ve ever met,” Lu Han admits. They round the corner, and he can see the door to his room, from here. Their outing is already coming to an end. “I think you’re the exception to the rule.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time I was told as much,” the nurse chuckles. “Baekhyun and I weren’t always the best of students. His mischief definitely influenced me, though, not the other way around.”

Lu Han scoffs. “Baekhyun, huh. He sure is a menace.”

Yixing shakes his head, but it’s fond, and something twists at the knot in Lu Han’s stomach. “He’s the best friend I could ask for, still. I wouldn’t be standing here if it wasn’t for him. But I think he would say the same about me.”

Lu Han wants to ask. Lu Han wants to know what makes Baekhyun so special, but he also wants Yixing to talk about him that way—something that’s so utterly stupid, lacks complete sense… It feels as though, however, very little has made sense since he arrived to this hospital. He’s lost count of time.

He barely thinks of Yifan, anymore. The battlefield that was once so familiar now feels… far away. Lu Han has become so increasingly detached to everything that makes his life _his_ , the things that gave him his raison d’être, that he’s starting to wonder when exactly this shift has occurred, and when.

Still, though, he doesn’t forget who he is, or where he belongs—at least, where he’s supposed to. He’s a soldier of the Party. He owes everything he has and is to the Academy, even if… it all seems odd, to remind himself of that.

Especially with Yixing in the picture, a walking antithesis of everything the Academy stands for, yet so familiar with the institution. The way Yixing seems so critical of everything should alarm Lu Han’s instincts, and it used to, before—but now, he finds himself only curious, only wanting to know what Yixing thinks of this and that and how he ended up here and why he’s the way he is, and Baekhyun, too, while he’s at it.

Curiosity was looked down upon, back at the Academy. Lu Han forgets, lately.

When he looks up, they’ve reached his room door, and Yixing is looking at him with something so deep in his eyes Lu Han almost gasps. The fondness in his eyes is another thing he keeps wondering about.

“Lost in thought?”

“Something like that,” Lu Han murmurs. “Are you coming?” he adds, making to enter the room.

“I don’t have any other patients to attend to, today, so, if you want me to, I mean—”

“Just say yes or no,” Lu Han chuckles. “I already know I’m your favourite.”

There’s that, too—the easy exchanges, the jokes that seem to come so easily, the shift between having the two of them in a conversation to the two of them being… something, together. Lu Han wonders what it is and why he wants it so dearly. Next to this, thoughts of the Party, the Academy, a duty he has to honour, it all pales, in comparison.

Inside his room, he barely needs Yixing’s help to climb on the bed. His leg still hurts, his thigh sometimes acts up—but he notices now the healing of his own body and its steady recovery. Baekhyun is a skilled physician, and Yixing, a caring nurse, that he won’t question.

Yixing still hovers around him, though, his hand secure around Lu Han’s arm, then gentle when he covers his body with the bed sheets and when he brushes Lu Han’s hair away from his face, even if he could have done it himself. From his bed, Lu Han observes him, not unlike he has done many times in the past now. Yixing stares back, and something shifts, clicks into place, and Lu Han breathes more freely.

“Those things that make people happy,” he starts, voice soft and almost inaudible in the air around them. He knows Yixing has heard him, though for he nods at his words, taking a seat at the edge of Lu Han’s bed. “What are they?”

A long sigh answers him first. Yixing gets a little more comfortable against the mattress, and Lu Han scoots over, leaving him more room. Yixing could lie down next to him, if he wanted. He doesn’t.

“I guess it depends on every person,” he starts, eyes lost a little bit above Lu Han’s head. He’s got a hand over Lu Han’s, on the bed, but it’s just there; something itches at his skin, begging him to _hold_. “Some things bring more happiness to certain people than others. Music, for example. They make some people happier than others. Like me,” he says, smiling. “Or painting, for Baekhyun, even if he almost never talks about it.”

“Baekhyun paints?” Now that’s something Lu Han wasn’t expecting.

“He does,” Yixing nods. “I don’t think he’s picked up his brushes for a long time, though. I wasn’t really into it, either,” he shrugs. “Not my thing. See what I mean? Some of those things, they vary, for people. As simple as they are.”

“But what about the things that don’t change?” Lu Han insists. He closes his eyes, feeling something akin to sleep washing over him, but as peaceful as it is, it’s also simmering under his skin and making him itch for _more_. “The things that keep people happy. There must be some that all of them share.”

“You shouldn’t speak of those people like they don’t include you,” Yixing remarks, squeezing at his hand. Lu Han’s heart does a tumultuous summersault in his ribcage. “Stop thinking like the Academy as taught you to. You’re just as human as the rest of us.”

This time, Lu Han doesn’t question it. This time, Lu Han only hums, pulling at Yixing’s hand, gesturing him to continue. It’s so much easier now, much less pressing and stressful, as it had been the last time, when Lu Han was so desperate for an answer and Yixing was so unwilling to provide any.

This is peaceful, this is them. This is something else, something…

“There are feelings,” Yixing says, “that keep people together. Hope, for example. But mostly love.”

 _Love_. Lu Han’s mind is answering, timidly, with a shy, _maybe_.

“And you can find beauty in love,” Yixing continues, “as it comes in so many shapes and forms. Love between friends. Love between a mother and her child. Love that’s keeping an entire community tightly knit, together. And the best…” Yixing’s smile deepens. “Love between lovers, of course.”

The smile mirrored on Lu Han’s lips is so fond, he knows. Yixing’s words are so utterly sweet, they’re almost begging to be made fun of, to turn this heartfelt and too honest declaration to the ridicule, but it’s the sincerity of Yixing’s words which holds him back.

And so instead, he prompts, “Lovers?”

At first, Yixing only hums lowly. It washes over Lu Han, anchored deep in his guts and warming him up from the inside. The gentle squeeze around his hand and the thumb stroking his skin elicit in him the same feelings. “There’s just something utterly beautiful about it,” Yixing whispers. “I don’t think I know how to describe it.”

“You’ve been in love before, then?” The question should be trivial, so why does Lu Han feel so much weight letting it out?

The tone Yixing’s voice takes is wondrous, reminiscent, and oh so soft. “I have, yeah. And maybe that’s why I don’t think I could ever put it into words.”

“It was that amazing?”

“It was a mess, if I’m honest,” he chuckles softly. Still fond, though. “But now that I’m older, it was part of what made it such a beautiful thing, you know. Having a ridiculous crush on one of your friends, and then clumsily confessing to them—and of course, embarrassing yourself doing it. But then, things work out… and it’s nice, so nice. At least for a while.”

“What happened next?”

When Yixing shrugs, Lu Han feels it, because Yixing’s fingers slightly close themselves tighter around his hand and lifts it slightly as he moves. “We broke up, of course. We were both young, and we wanted different things. We’re still good friends. You’ve probably heard a story like that before, anyway. It’s not all that special, told like this.”

“I haven’t, actually.” Admitting it out loud in front of Yixing is nothing like he would have expected. _Love_ and _relationships_ and _feelings_ in general were never part of his daily life, or thoughts, before. The Academy was exempt of what he once thought were distractions, all those things that set your insides ablaze and made your guts twist at the mere word or thought of a certain someone.

Not that he would know. But if he were to guess, well.

“Never?” Yixing sounds incredulous. He probably is.

Lu Han opens his eyes, shrugging as best as he can on his bed. “Never.”

Yixing is tilting his head, staring him down with rapt wonder, and something else, incomprehensible, in his eyes. And when he speaks, his voice is in awe, but also intrigued, and he only says one thing. “Lu Han.”

And Lu Han doesn’t know what to say to this—his name, said like _that_ —and so he asks more questions, questions that won’t make him feel like he’s being observed and _admired_. “What’s beautiful about getting yourself involved in something you know will end at some point anyway?”

Yixing’s smile never falters. Lu Han wants so much, he doesn’t know what to do. “Because I guess we’re naïve enough to hope it won’t end? And because, on the road, getting there, you get to experience so many things. Again,” he adds, licking his lips, “I don’t think I could ever describe it.”

“I haven’t been in love before.”

“Never?”

“Never. I mean—no, never.” _Not until now_ , he wants to say, though the words, even in his head, hold so much gravity to them, so much certainty, Lu Han isn’t sure he’s ready to have them out in the open.

When he fell for Yixing, he doesn’t know. How and when those feelings were ever nurtured, he has no idea, either. But maybe he understands some of what Yixing is telling him, right now, even though he doesn’t think he’s ever lived through it—the beauty of what he _feels_ , the irresistible hope that drives his thoughts and actions, the desire to have something good for himself and to share it with someone he seemingly has grown to admire and appreciate so much, it’s all there for him to consider and realize that yeah, maybe, he has found something— _someone_ , in Yixing, that he would have never thought himself deserving of, before.

While all he’s ever known comes down to a gun in his hand and a battlefield under his feet, Yixing, who is kind and sweet, makes Lu Han forget there are wars raging somewhere, and that he should be taking part in them.

And maybe Yixing has picked up on that, for his smile changes, somehow, and Lu Han feels him interlace their fingers between them. “Are you sure?”

Lu Han doesn’t answer. He squeezes Yixing’s hand, however, and revels in the soft laugh the nurse lets out.

“You’re a charmer, aren’t you, Lu Han.”

“I’m a useless soldier in a hospital bed, holding the hand of his beloved nurse,” Lu Han tries to joke, but the oddity of their situation, its hopelessness, is suddenly striking.

Even if Lu Han is in love—or _whatever_ it is—is it even worth it at all? He isn’t meant to be here, he isn’t meant to meet people and feel and _fall_ , and yet… God, he wants this. He isn’t one to want so desperately, he’s learned to repress those stubborn needs, but with Yixing’s hand in his and him being so close, and just—everything that has led to this, all the curious questions that held a double meaning to them, because Lu Han has only ever wanted to know more about Yixing as much as Yixing was seemingly curious about him, through the care he’s shown and the particular honesty he displays.

All of this spurred this, this moment, and Lu Han _wants_ , everything else be damned.

Yixing, God bless him, seems to understand. “Forget about it, then,” he says, voice now much lower in tone, murmuring in the space between them. He scoots closer on the bed, his head almost levelled with Lu Han’s against the pillows. “You’re no soldier, and I’m no nurse. What would you do, then?”

“I don’t know,” confesses Lu Han at first. “I’ve never done this before—”

He doesn’t need to explain, doesn’t need to specify, because Yixing understands—yet he presses, insists, and Lu Han is so close to giving up. “What would you do, Lu Han? What do you want to do?”

“I would kiss you,” he finally lets out, and once it’s out, he can’t stop. “I want to. Christ, it terrifies me and this isn’t _me_ and this shouldn’t be—this _can’t_ be, you know it can’t—but God, I _want_ it, Yixing—”

“Then do it, for the love of God, Lu Han,” Yixing whispers, barely a breath away, “just _kiss me_.”

In the end, they meet halfway—Lu Han leaning up, Yixing leaning down, and their lips, meeting in the middle.

Whatever thoughts and fantasies Lu Han has had about this, no matter whether he can recall them or not, whatever feelings of bliss he had thought he could feel at the press of their mouths—nothing, none of it compares to _this_.

They hold still, for a short moment, their lips softly pressing, before Yixing tilts his head and kisses Lu Han’s bottom lip, pulling just a little. It seems to awaken Lu Han’s body, taking over his mind and moving on its own accord, sliding a hand to the back of Yixing’s neck and pulling him closer. Yixing shivers under his hand, and Lu Han swallows it with his mouth, soothes it with his fingers in the younger’s hair. Sparks shoot down to his toes, warmth spreads in his stomach—he feels so whole and so new, and yet, he needs more, wants more.

Yixing is now hovering entirely over him, their hands still clasped between them, his free one holding himself up above Lu Han’s body. His kisses last longer, pushing more insistently, and when he licks tentatively between Lu Han’s lips, Lu Han knows he’s ready for this.

Their kiss deepens, languid and so, _so_ slow, like Yixing is afraid to break him and Lu Han is afraid of going too fast, losing himself in the moment. The skin under his palm is burning, and he feels himself getting impossibly hot, too. His skin all over his body is _begging_ to be touched, and he thinks he shouldn’t feel this much, just after one kiss.

Yixing’s mouth against his is heavenly, though— _God_ , he can’t get enough of this, and Lu Han keeps kissing, giving, receiving—but at some point, they have to breathe, and just like that, Yixing’s mouth leaves him. Lu Han almost—embarrassingly—groans at the loss of touch.

Above him, Yixing laughs softly, so high in tone it makes Lu Han squirm again. “Not bad.”

“Not bad?” Lu Han can’t help but repeat, incredulous. A laugh of his own escapes him. “This is really the _only_ thing you have to say?”

“Alright, I see Mr. Soldier is getting a little overconfident,” Yixing teases.

Lu Han closes his eyes. He realizes the rush of heat to his face is most likely caused by his blush, and he’s about to say something when he feels a press of lips against his lips—just a peck, taking him by surprise.

“This, this kiss,” Yixing says simply. “Can you give me this?”

“This, and so much more, you have no idea,” Lu Han murmurs. He feels Yixing all around him, a shadow, a cloud of heat and want and _Yixing_ , all over. It’s there, surrounding him, barely touching save for the hand he’s still holding and the now soft touch of his fingers in his hair. “But—”

“Then don’t say anything more,” he pleads, serious and firm. “Don’t say you can’t when you’ve just proven otherwise. Don’t… don’t bring the Academy, or any of that bullshit into this. This is us, yes?”

“Us?” asks Lu Han timidly, opening his eyes again. He was already missing Yixing’s face anyway.

Yixing nods slowly, his eyelashes fanning beautiful shadows against his high cheekbones. “You can relish in this,” he says in a whisper. Then, he presses one kiss, at the corner of Lu Han’s lips, pulling away before he can move. “Let yourself have this. Let me, if you’ll have me.”

The thoughts and the fears and the never-ending questions—they’re fighting for Lu Han’s attention, right now, in his head, but none can win against Yixing, his soft voice, the earnest tone of his words, their implications.

“Alright,” he relents, not without a soft smile that Yixing mirrors. “I will.”

***

One kiss in the morning, on his forehead, then on his lips. The talks resume, but their voices, Lu Han notices, are softer, and lilt more often on the edges.

Touches, slight and ephemeral; interlaced fingers, or hands pressing gently against an elbow, a cheek, fingers carding through soft hair. They’re more and more frequent, and hold more meaning.

Smiles that seem to brighten as days go by. Lu Han isn’t sure when he’s started to forget about the world outside, deciding instead to focus on the beauty Yixing tells him about, or the beauty Yixing is, himself.

An observant Baekhyun, with his raised eyebrows and knowing looks. He poises wary looks on Lu Han, at first, before they grow more and more resigned, and later, purely fond—though they keep a certain edge to them, remaining attentive and careful.

With time, the distance between Yixing and Lu Han diminishes, and his recovery only improves. Soon enough, he doesn’t need any kind of support for their now daily walks. Sometimes, he dreads the meaning of this—he’s soon to be set free, to go back to a life he has lost the purpose of already. But Yixing, somehow, constantly reminds him that there are still things in him that need healing, that more time won’t hurt anyone, and when Lu Han gets particularly antsy, he’ll indulge him in one long, steamy kiss.

It’s strange, dizzying, even, how fast things change. Surely, forgetting about the world he comes from won’t do Lu Han any good—and some part of him knows, begs him to listen, to pay attention. But he’s had enough of this, and so he ignores it, as best as he can, and indulges himself this one thing, this one good thing.

***

“Do you think about home, sometimes?” Yixing asks one evening, as he’s sorting through Lu Han’s files—the paper ones, because he still hasn’t given up on them.

Lu Han shifts in his bed. He makes sure to leave some room for Yixing, whom he knows won’t hesitate to join him at some point. “Home? I don’t have a home.”

“You must have a home,” Yixing tuts. “Maybe you only can’t afford to remember it.”

Lu Han sighs. “There’s the big bad A-word, that’s what I remember.” He’s picked up, a long time ago, that Yixing very much doesn’t like talking about the Academy—or at least, Lu Han’s own version of it. He still has tons and tons of stories about his own time there, alongside Baekhyun. “And a bit of other things, but it’s hard to remember.”

“You can’t possibly consider the Academy your home,” Yixing says with a shudder. He puts down the papers on the bedside table, then goes to close the door and turn off the lights, only leaving the screens at the head of the bed alight and giving off a faint, blueish green glow to the room. “Scoot. I’m gonna fall over.”

“I’m already squished against the left side!”

“ _Scoot_ , old man. You can squish against me once I’m comfy.”

Lu Han relents, and Yixing climbs gingerly onto the bed. It squawks a little, and Lu Han often wonders if—or when—it’ll break under their joined weight, but it usually does a decent job at holding up. They’ve tested it.

Yixing brings his arm around Lu Han’s stomach, taking care of not jostling his legs too much. He’s still a patient, after all—as much as they both try to forget, sometimes; it’s inevitable, in the situation they’re in.

“The Academy was my home,” Lu Han picks up again, voice much lower in the dark. “For a long time, it’s the only place I’ve known.”

“It differs from a home, though,” insists Yixing. His words make air puff against Lu Han’s skin. He takes their joined hands and squeezes. “The Academy is… so different. They force down that feeling of belonging down your throat, trying to make you so convinced of where you belong, what you believe in… but I guess that’s what makes their students so diligent.”

“Some of these kids don’t have a home to begin with.” Lu Han remembers Yifan, suddenly. He doesn’t like to remind himself of his brothers-in-arms, lately, but he thinks of Yifan nonetheless. “Some of these kids find their hope within the Academy. They find an identity within the Party.”

“But they know nothing but the stuff the Party teaches them,” Yixing insists. He’s trailing distracted fingers across Lu Han’s chest, tickling his skin and setting it on fire.

“What else is there to learn, then?”

“You learn of a faceless enemy that you absolutely _have_ to destroy, yet you know nothing about the ones you’re out fighting against, for one.” His tone is so hard, suddenly. Lu Han is taken aback. “You wouldn’t believe me, if I told you.”

“No one knows,” defends Lu Han. “It’s… it’s better that way. So we can’t sympathize with the enemy, that’s what they used to tell us—”

“Well, maybe you should, you know,” Yixing cuts. “Empathy has never hurt anyone—but especially not in this case.”

“And how do you know?”

Yixing falls silent. It’s loud in the close space between them. The intimacy of their embrace, paired with their sudden serious words, feels too odd in Lu Han’s heart—and Yixing seems to agree. “Not… not today,” he says, heavy and sighing. “I don’t want to do this today.”

And as much as Lu Han is curious, he lets go. He can only hope to get his answers some time or another.

Instead, he asks, “How was your home, then?”

Yixing smiles against his neck, and Lu Han shivers, pleased. Good. “Warm. Lovely. It smelled of spices and roses all the time. My mother’s two favourite things.”

“Where was that?”

“Somewhere in the centre,” Yixing explains. “Near Old China’s Changsha. My mom used to sing its songs, you know.”

“She doesn’t anymore?”

“Oh, she still does, sometimes. But I’m not always there to listen, so it feels like she doesn’t, anymore.” A pause. “I should take you with me, someday.”

Lu Han laughs. “Oh yeah?”

“Mmh. She’d absolutely love you.”

“Even if I’m a killing machine, the Academy’s textbook, like you said?” He’s not all that proud about it anymore, though it’s such a big part of him. He still misses his gun, sometimes. A lot of the time—even if it makes him want to throw up, as well.

“You’re human, like the rest of us, Lu Han, don’t you forget that.” Yixing’s words, like always, are so earnest, and Lu Han absolutely melts. “There’s good in you, so much good in you. I can see it. My mom would see it, too.”

Lu Han falls silent. The concept of a family of his own is one he has forgotten about, and one he doesn’t want to try remembering, not yet.

He watches Yixing’s fingers in the dark dance against his chest, detailing their movements, appreciating their touch against his skin through his thin clothes. Elegant and thin, yet sturdy and firm, when they hold him—Yixing’s hands are a wonder, and Lu Han suddenly wants them all over him, all over, everywhere, touching him—

“We should sleep,” Yixing says, low in the night. “ _You_ should sleep. I have to go, soon.”

“Can’t you stay?” Lu Han pleads. He suddenly _needs_ —

“I’ll be back tomorrow, love, don’t you worry. Now you should really—”

“Kiss me,” asks Lu Han, breathless. “Just once, before you leave.”

Yixing smiles—he feels it again against his skin—before he leans up, hovering above Lu Han’s figure. The blue light of the screens above them reflects against his eyes, making them shine almost too beautifully, surreal in the dark of the room.

Then, he leans down, and Lu Han doesn’t bite back the moan that escapes his lips once they kiss.

This time, he brings both of his hands to frame Yixing’s face, fingers dipping back to run through his hair and brush back, pressing him infinitely closer. Yixing groans against his mouth, his entire body pushing against Lu Han’s, and _yes_ , God, _this_ is what he wants, this fiery touch and this undecipherable feeling washing over him—

They lick at each other’s mouths too fast and too hastily, teeth clashing, breaths growing heavier and louder by the second. Lu Han wants to get lost in this—fuck, he _needs_ to—and thinks if anything deserves to be called love, it’s this, this feeling, this desire burning from deep inside.

Yixing pants against his mouth, letting out tiny noises from the back of his throat, and Lu Han drinks them in, all of them. Heat is pooling at his groin, and it should be a telltale sign that they should stop, because they cannot afford this—except that’s exactly what Lu Han is seeking, what’s he’s running after, and tonight he desperately wants it.

“Yixing, fuck,” he kisses, soothes, needs more. “ _Yixing_.”

“Lu Han, we can’t—”

“I know, but—”

“Oh, _shit_ —”

When Yixing throws his head back, Lu Han drinks in the sight of his throat, lean, skin glistening, and he approaches with his mouth, his tongue. Yixing shivers under his touch. “Please,” he begs.

Yixing’s mouth is back against his in a matter of moments, this time purposeful and determined. It’s messy, it’s an ordeal of want and lust washing over them despite the circumstances—but they manage, and it’s beautiful, wonderful, and it takes Lu Han’s breath away.

They move in sync, despite their desperate gestures. Yixing’s hands are finally roaming Lu Han’s body like he wants them to—and soon they’re working him up deliciously, and Lu Han decides to abandon Yixing’s hair to return the favour.

Their moans are smothered by each other’s mouths. Their bodies are burning hot—Lu Han has no idea how his blouse let way to show the skin of his chest, but Yixing is working his mouth against it, now, and he arches his back off the bed.

Alarms are going off in his head. He ignores them.

Pleasure builds up, and the beauty of Yixing’s body, moving and pressing against his own, loving him, is immeasurable. They keep quiet because they cannot afford to be loud, they barely move because it feels too good, and they shouldn’t, but…

“Say my name again,” Yixing says, voice hoarse and pleading despite its firm tone.

“Yixing.”

“ _Again_.”

“ _Yixing_ , please—”

“Yes, _fuck_ —”

Yixing’s hand twists and Lu Han stills, moan caught in his throat, pleasure washing over him. Above him, Yixing still moves, hips swirling just that much, before he stops as well, shuddering a breath against Lu Han’s mouth.

Moments pass. Lu Han isn’t sure how long it takes before any of them do anything.

Breaking the moment seems impossible to avoid—Yixing will eventually have to leave, and Lu Han has to take care of the mess they’ve created, anyway—but for now, they stay still, and Lu Han’s breaths slowly start to even out.

“Say it again.”

“Your name?”

“Yeah, say it.”

“Yixing. Zhang Yixing.” And because he feels brave, “I think I love you.”

Yixing laughs, but it’s fond, soft, barely audible. “Lu Han.”

“Yeah?”

“I think I love you, too.”

***

Lu Han can’t breathe.

There’s a sharp jab of pain shooting from his leg to his brain, throbbing at his thigh and pulsing in his head. It’s _agonizing_ , so much so he can barely feel his body. It feels atrociously familiar, and though the pain isn’t as strong, as biting as it had been, weeks or months before, it remains overwhelming.

When he looks down, his vision blurs—but he forces himself to focus, to find sense in this chaos around him swimming in dizzying, moving shapes. Somewhere in the back of his mind, however, he notices the smoke, how it latches onto his lungs, how it keeps himself from inhaling.

He cannot _breathe_.

Through the pain that’s squeezing the life out of him, through the smoke that’s tightening the muscles of his throat, through the tears forming at the corner of his unfocused eyes, Lu Han panics, denies any of this is happening, because it simply _cannot be_.

Not again.

It can’t be.

Some silly part of his mind that’s still lucid through the jarring agony is screaming about how this shouldn’t be happening. His forgotten duty is coming back to haunt him, it seems, in the worst possible ways—but still, none of this should be _happening_. He wants, prays for this to be an awfully realistic nightmare, hoping the pain he feels shooting from his already wounded leg is just an illusion; his own injury acting up, making him go through fever dreams.

Lu Han is panicked. Around him, as he forces himself to focus and clear the tears from his eyes, the white walls of his room are stained black with soot.

He thinks he hears the bombing—he had forgotten the bombing—getting mixed with voices, some far away, some closer than they should be. The pain is still there, now submerging his entire brain, taking over his senses. Crying becomes difficult, although he isn’t even sure if he was crying in the first place or not. He could feel the tears, though, sliding down his cheeks and most likely leaving dark soot traces behind them against his skin.

Lu Han can’t die. Amidst the chaos, his thoughts take him back to a dimpled smile and the kindest eyes—he needs to find Yixing, to get him out of here. No matter what this is, no matter what is happening or why it is even happening, he absolutely needs to free him from this mess. Lu Han remains a soldier of the Academy; it’s a sick joke, now, but it remains his title and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t use it to his advantage to save Yixing’s life.

He indulges himself one sob, one whimper, before he stands up, ignoring the pain taking over. It feels like it takes years for him to reach the door, and the handle burns at his skin once he reaches for it.

He opens the door, and smoke clouds his vision, stings at his eyes, envelops his lungs. He barely manages one, three, five steps, before he crumbles on the ground in the hall, unaware of the pair of arms enclosing around him.

***

“Lu Han, please, wake up, please—”

“You can’t drag him around like this, Xing—”

“Instead of blabbering about would you give me a hand, yeah?”

“He’s holding us down, Yixing—”

“We can’t leave him here!”

“I know that, but—God, Yixing!”

Silence. Lu Han coughs, tries to, and Yixing’s arm him tighten. He still doesn’t feel like waking up just yet.

“The Party did this, Yixing. They’re the ones shooting at us from above and every direction, and if we’re caught with him fleeing, it won’t be good to neither of us, but definitely not for _him_.”

“Let’s make sure we don’t get caught then.” And, after a moment, barely whispered and audible amongst the bombing and the gunshots that Lu Han can still faintly hear, “Baekhyun, I’m begging you, _please_.”

A long sigh, that turns into a slight cough. “Alright, let’s go. I trust you. I trust.. I trust the both of you.”

“Thank you.”

***

When Lu Han awakens a second time, the room he’s in is swarmed in blaring light from the window on the wall adjacent to the one he’s held up against.

He squints against the light, and tries to breathe—before he starts coughing loudly, and his hands fly at his chest on their own, trying to grip through the fabric and search through his bones because he _can’t fucking breathe_.

“Hey, hey, easy there, yeah?” A kind, crystalline voice soothes him, and Lu Han closes his eyes, swallowing a sob. Relief washes over him.

“Yixing,” he tries, then goes more slowly, inhales deeply but not too fast, as Yixing is moving his hands around his back and holding his fingers tightly. “Are you—are you okay?”

The laugh Yixing gives him, though shaking and slightly hysterical, but it’s imprinted with relieved happiness, and Lu Han’s heart eases just that much. “You’re the one who passed out injured in the hall in the middle of an attack, and you’re asking if _I’m_ okay?”

“I wanted—I was trying to find you,” he explains through the clog in his throat.

“Don’t push yourself too much,” Baekhyun’s soothing voice resonates next to him. “And lower your tone, too. We don’t want soldiers of the Party to find us.”

Soldiers of the Party? Lu Han turns questioningly to find Baekhyun squatting down on the floor, eyes piercing and looking through the window on the wall—

A window. A _window_. “There’s a window in this room,” Lu Han says, voice low, swallowing around the smoke in his lungs. “It’s—this is the first one I’ve seen in _months_.”

“This is an underground base, Lu Han,” Yixing explains slowly, and his tone is careful, like he’s afraid to startle Lu Han with his words. “The lack of windows is pretty self-explanatory in that case.”

“Why an underground hospital?”

“So we’re not going to be found,” Baekhyun replies this time. “We don’t _want_ to be found.”

“But you’re… this is a hospital,” Lu Han asks. His head hurts. His leg is throbbing again. “What if you need supplies? Personnel? The Party would readily help you—”

“The Party is in no way going to help us,” Baekhyun scoffs. He lowers himself to the ground, back against the wall, fixing Lu Han with grave eyes. It clashes with their youthful image. “We’re part of the enemy you were so intent on fighting and destroying only months ago, Lu Han.”

Ice shoots through him, freezing his limbs, making his words stutter and stop at the tip of his tongue. “What?” he lets out.

His vision clouds, but Yixing’s hand around his is insistent, pulling. “You didn’t know,” Yixing murmurs, enlacing his fingers with Lu Han’s. “You couldn’t… no one was ever going to tell you, you wouldn’t know—”

“How are _you_ the enemy?” He turns to Yixing with wild eyes, trying to search for any trace of evil, of the enemy he was taught since age ten to look out for, to eliminate, to _kill_. He remembers blood and faces falling, hard lines and eyes that are so afraid. However, the face staring back at him is only loving, and the feeling in his stomach is sickening.

“The Party doesn’t have an enemy, Lu Han,” says Yixing, regretful, like he’s disclosing a truth— _the_ truth—he doesn’t want to believe himself, and that he knows Lu Han doesn’t want to believe, either. “It’s killing its own people. The poor, the weak. They’re sending disciples of the Academy, Novices and others just like you, year after year to do just that.”

What? That’s… _no_ , that’s impossible; no matter how perverted and twisted the Party could be, this isn’t what the Academy has taught him. The nobility of his title cannot be stained with such accusations. It doesn’t even make sense— _why_ would the Party send troops against its own people? “No,” he chokes out. “You’re—this doesn’t even make sense, Yixing, you’re… I know you have _something_ against the Party, and the Academy—”

“This is more than just that,” Yixing insists. His eyes are growing restless, fixing Lu Han’s eyes one moment and fleeting away the next. “Why do you think the Academy fosters such a blind faith in you lot so that you’re ready to do anything for them?”

“Because it’s worth it!” He isn’t convinced himself, and isn’t even the least surprised when Baekhyun retorts just as soon as he finishes his sentence.

“Because they don’t want you asking questions,” he seethes. “Waging a civil war, an organized civil war like they are, is the way they’ve figured out to keep this country alive after their Coup fifty years ago. If the commoners build weapons and if they send their children to kill the ones that don’t profit the Party, the entire society flows well. Kill more, produce more weapons, kill again, make weapons again. It’s sickening, but it works.” There are tears in the corners of Baekhyun’s eyes. Lu Han feels his own sting again, from more than just the smoke.

It’s a lot to take—and Lu Han isn’t sure he can assess it. He doesn’t want to believe it—but the hard looks Baekhyun gives him, and the desolate yet still hopeful ones Yixing is offering him, slowly manage to convince him, and dread fills his lungs. He was one of them, after all—those children, sent to seemingly kill his own, and Lu Han suddenly remembers the words Yixing had spoken with calm ferocity, an eternity ago.

 _Dying is dying. It’s pitiful on either accounts._ He thinks he understands, now, something he should have never even forgotten, in a way.

“So you knew.” Lu Han feels sick, so sick.

“We knew,” Yixing nods. “Of course we did. We set up this place to help, to offer shelter to other dissidents as well as stray soldiers just like you. We only wanted to _help_.”

“And now the Party has found us,” Baekhyun swallows. “They don’t like it when people get in their way. When people figure out their little tricks. This isn’t the first time, either.”

“I lost my entire village to them, you know,” Yixing murmurs. He squeezes Lu Han’s hand. “ _We_ did. I was lucky enough to flee, me and my family. But I guess you wouldn’t remember.”

What? Does Lu Han remember _what_?

He doesn’t have time to wonder, though. Baekhyun shoots a look over his shoulder at the window, and swears under his breath. “They’re coming for us.”

“Who?”

“The soldiers,” Yixing says. _His brothers-in-arms_ , Lu Han hears. “Can you stand up?”

Lu Han, lost in his daze, tries to gauge his leg, lifting it up and down from the floor. He can’t stand up fully in this small room, with its low ceiling and too close walls, but he thinks he can manage, if he grits through the pain and doesn’t let go of Yixing’s hand. “I think so, yeah.”

“Okay, then let’s go.”

“Where are we going?” Lu Han asks timidly.

“Anywhere,” Baekhyun says, moving towards the small door Lu Han only just notices now. It’s made of black metal, and looks heavy. Lu Han wonders what’s waiting for him, behind it. “Anywhere, as long as we don’t get caught.”

Lu Han swallows. The smoke still burns his throat and enflames his lungs, but as he moves to stand, he focuses on the touch of Yixing’s hands all around him, supporting, soothing. It isn’t like their tender touches, the ones Lu Han craves so much as much as he also cannot afford to recall, but it’s something—an anchor, in the chaos.

Baekhyun stands at the door, weight ready to push the metal and let them out. “Ready?”

Yixing moves them closer to him, and Baekhyun slings an arm around his shoulders. Lu Han has Yixing’s hand in his own and his arm around his waist. With their dirtied clothes and their haggard faces, they must make quite the deplorable trio, for whoever might or might not see them as they’ll cross the door facing them.

Lu Han hasn’t stepped a foot outside in weeks. For a long time, stuck in this underground hospital, it had been the one thing he had wished above anything, it had been his only illusion of hope, until he fell for kindness and peace in the form of a person. There’s still so much he wonders about, so much he is suddenly scared of—it’s like he’s getting back his humanity, through bits and pieces scattered across the anarchy around him, as if this short interlude, between his time at the Academy and as a soldier, and whatever is waiting for him behind this door, was an episode of his life he was always meant to go through, to awaken from this apathy-driven life he has been plunged in for the longest time.

Lu Han is terrified. The black door facing him has an air of finality, hints at an ending, just like it also represents a beginning, an atrociously scary uncertainty he isn’t ready to face.

He has no choice, however. He holds on to Yixing’s hand, looks up to find him waiting patiently despite the loud bombs and the guns and the smoke and the tears. He nods slowly, before turning to Baekhyun.

“I’m ready.”

 

_fin._

 


End file.
